Mahmud started the modernization of Turkey by paving the way for the Edict of Tanzimat 1839 which instituted European-style clothing, uniforms, weapons, architecture, education, legislation, banking, institutional organization, agricultural and industrial innovations, new technologies in transport and communications, and land reform. During the Tanzimat period from Arabic tanzīm, meaning "organization" the government's series of constitutional reforms led to a fairly modern conscripted army, banking system reforms, the decriminalisation of homosexuality, the replacement of religious law with secular law and guilds with modern factories. In 1856, the Hatt-Humayan promised equality for all Ottoman citizens regardless of their ethnicity and religious confession; which thus widened the scope of the 1839 Hatt-e Gulhane. Overall, the Tanzimat reforms had far-reaching effects.